Australian Labor MP and lesbian mother-of-three, Penny Sharpe, has delivered an incredibly moving speech pushing for the advancement of LGBT rights, slamming newspaper editors for their “ill-informed commentary” on same-sex parenting.

Kat Holmes, an Australian film-maker currently living in the UK, used the opportunity to draw close comparisons between her countries.

She told the The Huffington Post UK: "Support from the public for marriage equality currently sits at over 70% - higher than both the US and UK when marriage equality was enacted in both those countries.

"And yet, many Australian politicians remain intractably opposed to same sex marriage. It is hard to understand why."